a palace
a Parisian eating house
an island
flowers, free designs, lines aimlessly intertwined and called foliage
a dish with spice and condiments
the color violet
string instruments
the building we are looking at, the garment the man is wearing, the concert we are listening to, the poem put up to be judged
a party, the party
a rose, many singular roses, Roses in general, the rose
some garment, house, or flower
a violin (as distinct from sound and noise)
vibrations of the aether in uniform temporal sequence
ornaments (parerga)
picture frames, or drapery on statues, or colonnades around magnificent buildings
a lawn in a forest encircled by trees, unconnected to the thought of a country dance
flowers, which hardly anyone apart from the botanist know what sort of thing it is meant to be
flowers, as the reproductive organ of the plant
many birds (the parrot, the humming-bird, the bird of paradise) and a lot of crustaceans in the sea
designs à la grecque, the foliage on border or on wallpaper, etc.
fantasias in music
a human being (and, as kinds subordinate a human being…a man or woman or child), a horse or a building (such as a church, palace, armory, or summer-house)
a figure embellished with all sorts of curlicues and light but regular lines, as the New Zealanders do with their tattoos
beautiful flowers, beautiful furnishings, a beautiful view
a mansion, a tree, a garden
the shape of an animal of a particular kind
a horse or dog (of a certain breed)
a thousand adult men, the stature for a beautiful man, this average man
the average head, the average nose, etc.
this shape which underlies the standard idea of a beautiful man
the famous Doryphorus of Polyclitus (Myron’s Cow, within its kind)
the stone utensils sometimes excavated from ancient burial mounds, which are provided with a hole as if for a handle
a flower, e.g. a tulip
poetry
geometrically regular figures, such as a circle, square, or cube
a circular figure, a scrawled outline
an equilateral and equiangular quadrangle
a room whose walls form oblique angles, a garden plot of that kind, even any violation in the symmetry of animals (such as being one-eyed) or of buildings or flower beds
a building or an animal
pleasure gardens, room decoration, all sorts of tasteful utensils
the English taste in gardens, the Baroque taste in furniture
bird song, human song, birdsong imitated by a human being
a building, a view, a poem
a distant forest, a distant town
a poem
a dish, this food, the dish
all tulips, a singular given tulip, the tulip
the dyes people use to paint themselves (roucou among the Caribs and cinnabar among the Iroquois), or the flowers, sea shells, beautifully colored feathers
canoes, clothes, etc.
a wild flower, a bird, an insect, etc.
artificial flowers, stuck in the ground (which can be manufactured to look very much like natural ones) or artfully carved birds on the branches of trees
the nightingale’s enchantingly beautiful song in a secluded thicket on a quiet summer evening by the soft light of the moon; some roguish youngster who (with a reed or rush in his mouth) knew how to copy that song in a way very similar to nature’s
a piece of hewn wood
inspired poetry
a human being or a horse
a beautiful woman, the woman’s figure, the female build
The Furies, diseases, devastations of war, and so on
A poem, a piece of music, a gallery of pictures, and so on
in part: a poem, a story, an oration many conversations, even some women
invisible beings, the realm of the blessed, the realm of hell, eternity, creation, and so on
death, envy, and all the other vices, as well as love, fame, and so on
Jupiter’s eagle with the lightning in its claws, the peacock
Let us part from life without grumbling or regrets, Leaving the world behind filled with our good deeds, Thus the sun, his daily course completed, Spreads one more soft light over the sky; And the last rays that he sends through the air, Are the last sighs he gives the world for its well-being.
a beautiful morning
the sun shines forth, as serenity shines from virtue
oratory, poetry
painting
sculpture and architecture
statues of human beings, gods, animals, and so on; on the other hand, temples, magnificent buildings for public gatherings, or again residences; triumphal arches, columns, cenotaphs, and so on, erected as honorary memorials, even household furnishings (such as the work of the cabinet maker and other such things that are ment to be used)
painting, landscape gardening, painting proper
grasses, flowers, shrubs, and trees, even bodies of water, hills, and dales, only arranged differently and commensurately with certain ideas
the decoration of rooms with tapestries, bric-à-brac, and all beautiful furnishings whose sole function
is to be looked at, as well as the art of dressing tastefully
a parterre with all sorts of flowers, a room with all sorts of ornaments, some luxurious part
oratory combined with pictorial exhibition: drama; poetry combined with music: song; song combined with theatrical exhibition: opera; the play of sensations combined with the play of figures: dance
tragedy in verse, a didactic poem, an oratio
poetry, which holds the highest rank
a rapidity of vibrations of light or, in the case of tones, of the air
a perfumed handkerchief, pulled from his pocket, whose odor spreads far and which gives all of them next to him a treat whether they want it or not, and compels them if they want to breathe, to enjoy it
flowers, blossoms, even the shapes of entire plants
or the grace we see in the structure of various types of animals, which is unnecessary for their own use
all the variety and harmonious combination of colors, so likeable and charming to our eyes (as in pheasants, crustaceans, insects, down to the commonest flowers, which have to do merely with the surface
when water freezes, ice
many salts and rocks that have a crystalline figure, the drusy configurations of many minerals, such as cubical galena, red silver ore, and so on
any matter that was fluid merely as a result of being heated, and that solidifies as it cools, and that shows a definite texture when it is broken
some metals that, after having been molten, had hardened on the outside but were still fluid on the inside
many such mineral crystallizations, e.g., spars, hematite, and aragonite, which result in exceedingly beautiful shapes, such shapes as art might invent
the halo in the grotto of Antiparos, a product of water seeping through layers of gypsum
an atmosphere, a mixture of different types of air
the shape and the color of flowers, plumage, and sea-shells
snow-figures
a monarchy ruled by an individual absolute will, presented as a mere machine (such as a hand mill)
buildings or trees, landscapes, even colors
The above list of forms, re-workable and subject to change, is not per se a scholarly one. That is, while most of these forms have been written out directly as they appear, others have been subject to certain alterations. For example, the following argument, “…I may look at a rose and make a judgment of taste declaring it to be beautiful. But if I compare many singular roses and so arrive at the judgment, Roses in general are beautiful, then my judgment is no longer merely aesthetic, but is a logical judgment based on an aesthetic one…” is rendered into the much simpler list: a rose, many singular roses, Roses in general, the rose. All such choices aim towards one task: to lay bare Kant’s forms. This list does not intend to be a work of interpretation. I have not altered the context of these forms, though they are inevitably abstracted from the discussions in which they crop up. I have not altered the forms themselves, though the grammar which each is couched in may have needed, in some cases, certain alterations.
This list is the first attempt to systematically gather and present Kant’s forms. I define Kant’s forms as any form that appears in Critique of Judgement and that is used in the course of the argument as exemplary. Specifically, Kant’s forms are exemplary of what we can judge aesthetically. In Critique of Judgement, Kant states that form is the basis of all aesthetic judgement. This is unequivocal: aesthetic pleasure “we attribute to an object on account of its form,” “for the basis of the [aesthetic] pleasure is posited merely in the form of the object,” “aesthetic judgement…concerns a liking or disliking for the form of the object.” Form is centralized in the aesthetic encounter; more radically, we are told that it is the only thing with which aesthetic judgement is concerned. The presence of Kant’s forms and the presence of aesthetic judgements are synonymous across the text.
I would like to explain a few aspects of the logic this list as I have formed it:
1. This list of Kant’s forms will be the first list. I would like to make at least one other list, and possibly a third one, to account for the different ways these forms can be ordered. With this being the case, we might as readily call this list a catalogue or encyclopedia, if it did not invite certain implications that I will not deal with presently.
2. A beautiful object, a form, and all such general referents have not been included in this list.
3. Some repetitions have been excluded and some have not. Poetry and flowers, Kant’s two most favoured forms, are the two instances this had to be considered. Poetry appears nineteen times. I have reproduced it less than this. It is included in the first place it appears and in the place where it first is defined as a form of fine art—§44 On Fine Art—along with oratory as an art of speech. When ‘oratory and poetry’ are mentioned together the second time this is not included, nor is the general invocation of ‘the art of poetry’ just before. When poetry is mentioned multiple times in one paragraph, it is collapsed into one. This happens twice. It is not included when it appears in parenthesis. It is included when it is used with specificity, for example, when it is described as the highest form of art. Flowers appear fourteen times, and quite a few more if we count the three flower beds. Just like poetry, repetitions of flower in the same paragraph are not included. In one fringe case, where a person abandoned to a desert island does not choose to adorn her house with flowers, this form is excluded.
4. Where Kant himself makes lists of many forms, as he likes to, I have reproduced these as lists. Though where he occasionally follows one list with another, these have been separated onto different lines.
